[Watch Out For the Big Girls] Do Louisiana Lawmakers Really Want to Put a Weight Limit on Strippers?!

[Watch Out For the Big Girls] Do Louisiana Lawmakers Really Want to Put a Weight Limit on Strippers?!

Rep. Julie Stokes brilliantly drags them for it.

Published May 19, 2016

Good to know our state governments are focused on the important issues.

A recent Louisiana Senate bill that proposed changing the minimum age of employees at strip clubs in the state from 18 to 21 seemed to inspire the juvenile in all the male members of the legislative body. Several representatives proposed an amendment to the bill to set an upper age limit as well, and to limit employed strippers' weights to a maximum of 160 lbs.

The original text of Senate Bill 468 banned strip clubs that served alcohol from hiring dancers under the age of 21-years-old. According to records, Rep. Kenneth E. Harvard then proposed an amendment that would also limit employees to be "between twenty-one and twenty-eight years of age and shall be no more than one hundred and sixty pounds in weight."

“In the spirit of this legislative session, I will offer up this amendment as a part of keeping the spirit alive of trimming the fat,” Havard joked, drawing laughter from the other male lawmakers present.

He withdrew the amendment after Rep. Nancy Landry (R) asked him how he could “not find this offensive.” He received further criticism from Republican Rep. Julie Stokes, who took it upon herself to ridicule Harvard's disrespectful behavior.

“I’ve got to say, looking out over this body, I’ve never been more repulsed to be part of it,” she said. “I’m going to tell you one thing, the disrespect — and I saw it in 2013 in committee, and I’ve never been so disgusted to be part of a committee as I was in 2013, somebody made comments, like, ‘What if it’s a classy strip club like Cheetah’s in Atlanta?’ That’s not the way we behave in this body.”

Stokes also encouraged her male colleagues to "look at their own bodies," and "their own daughters," she said.

Many took to Twitter to voice their impressions on the absurd amendment proposal, and their support of Stokes.

Stokes continued, “I refuse the spirit of everything that I heard,” she said. “And I can’t even believe the behavior in here. I think we need to call an end to this. I hear derogatory comments about women in this place regularly. I hear and I see women get treated differently than men, and I’m going to tell you what, you gave me a perfect forum to talk about it right now.”

She concluded, “That was utterly disrespectful and disgusting. I really don’t have anything left to say.”

Well done, Rep. Stokes. Americans all over the country could use more representatives like you.